orange

I walked into my specialty foods market, and there they were,  staring back at me.  Sitting next to the key limes and tangelos,  the yellow-orange skinned globes begged me to stick a nose in the display.  Bergmont orange season, short lived as it is, had arrived.  Almost without thinking, I tossed a few into my basket.

Bergmont orange zest is the major flavor component in earl grey tea, and as I was enjoying a nice cup of earl grey, inspiration took hold; Earl Grey Sticky Buns!  The sweet dough is based on Richard Bertinet's, and the basic idea is based off of "Orange Sticky buns" from an issue of Saveur.  The dough is given a cold-retard at least overnight in the fridge to develop flavor, in lieu of a pre-ferment.

Sweet Dough (Make the day previous to bake day):
510g Bread Flour
225g Strong Brewed Black Tea (cool)
100g (2) Egg
56g Unsalted Butter
37g Sugar (I use evaporated cane)
20g Dry Milk
10g Salt
4g Instant Yeast

Mix until shaggy dough is formed. Rest for 20 mins. Kneed until gluten is well formed. Retard overnight (or longer).

Filling:
112g Unsalted butter, soft (1 stick)
zest of 2 bergmont oranges (chopped fine)
zest of 1 small meyer lemon (if more zest is wanted, optional)
125g raw sugar (brown sugar if you can't find raw)

Roll dough into a large rectangle, spread filling evenly across dough.  Roll up dough into cylinder, cut into 12 pieces and place into a buttered baking dish (mine is 9"x12").  Bake untill cooked though at 325F.  Frost if desired.

In gratitude for all of her help in my yeast water bread quest, I created a YW bread named for Akiko,  that would be fitting for her graciousness, generosity and skill.  I made this bread today and it is everything I would want in a YW bread if it were to be named after me but, she is the one stuck with it now  :-)  Thanks again to Akiko also known as teketeke at TFL.  A great YW bread named after a great lady.

teketeke Bread - Japanese White Whole Wheat, Orange, Apple, Turmeric, Seeded YW Bread

 Levain:

 KA bread flour - 75g

KA White WW flour – 75g

Yeast water 115g

 Total levain build 265g – at 80 F

 First build - 25g of both flours and 50g yeast water.   Second build 4 hours later - 25g each flour and 65g YW.  Third build 25g of both flours = stiff levain.  Let sit 4 more hours.

 I use Mandarin, Minneola Apple Yeast Water 2 days after refreshing from the refrigerator and reserve the apple and orange solids for the bread.

 Final Dough

 KA bread flour - 200g

KA White Whole Wheat - 100g

Water - 75g

Orange Juice - 80g

Egg yolk - 1

Whipping Cream - 60g

Sugar - 6g

Honey -6 g

Butter - 29g

Salt - 6g

2 tsp each Nigella, chia and basil seeds (hanseata’s contribution)

¼ tsp turmeric – for color

Apple and orange solids, patted dry with paper towel,  from the previous YW refresh 2 days before levain build began.

The entire levain

 Method:

 Make the levain - for 12 hours at80 F

 In stand mixer - mix the final ingredients, except the salt and reserved YW solids, with paddle at #2 - Autolyze for 30 minutes.

 Add the salt-- knead with dough hook starting on #2 and moving to #3 and #4  until the gluten develops to window pane stage for about 8-10 minutes.  Flatten, do S& F while incorporating the reserved YW solids into the dough.  Shape into ball and transfer to an oiled bowel and cover with oiled plastic wrap.

 Bulk ferment: 3 hours at 80 –82 Funtil the dough at least doubles.  Do one S &F at 30 and another at 60 minutes.

 Pre-shape fermented dough into ball and let rest 10 minutes.  Shape into loaf and place in oil sprayed 4 ½ x 8 ½ x 3 Pyrex loaf pan.  Cover pan with oiled plastic wrap.

 Proof:  2-6 hours at82 Funtil the dough at least rises up to the top of the pan.

 Preheat oven to450Fwith a loaf pan half filled with water and a12”cast iron skillet in the bottom of the oven and a stone on the next rack level above for 45 minutes.

 Decrease temperature to400F, throw a ½ cup of water into the cast iron skillet place bread into oven and bake for 12 minutes.

 Take out steaming apparatus, rotate loaf 180 degrees and bake for another 12 minutes.

 Place probe into the middle of the nearly finished loaf from the side and bake until the loaf hits205 Fturning 180 degrees every 4 minutes.  The loaf should be done in 28 minutes or so.  Turn off oven, take loaf out of pan, crack oven door open, place loaf back on stone and let the loaf sit in oven for 10 minutes more to crisp the crust.

 Remove loaf from oven and let cool to room temperature, about one hour, on a wire rack.

London is going through a heat wave, its hot, properly hot, which means my starter is going super mental and I have to think of new ways of using it and new bread recipes.

This post inspiration came from a glass of orange juice and a bit of nagging from my husband. Result - two loaves of bread, a whiskey orange bread and a seeded bread, one for my breakfast (I am into sweet toast at the moment) and one for my dear husband to satisfy his seeded, crunchy bread craving.

More photos and full recipes on my blog here

I made another loaf of my orange-raisin bread and refined my working recipe a bit, adding weights and some specifics on the marmalade step.

My working recipe is now as follows:

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Orange Raisin Bread

Ingredients:

about 200g of Home-made marmalade, made (see procedure below) from

about 200g = 1 smallish seedless navel orange and

100g = 1/2 cup granulated white sugar

~8g = 1 tablespoon SAF "red" instant yeast

~9g = 1.5 teaspoon salt

100g of raisins

450g unbleached bread flour

300g very warm water


Procedure
Quarter the orange and cut each quarter into 1/4-inch thick slices.  In small saucepan stir orange pieces up with the sugar to draw juice from pulp.  Heat mixture to boiling and stir while boiling until juice/sugar syrup does not drain from peel when pushed to one side of pan.  Cut peels up  as desired with table knife.

Put marmalade and all dry ingredients in mixing bowl, add the very warm water, and mix thoroughly.  Dough will be very soft and sticky, too much so to knead by hand.  If necessary it can be spoon-kneaded in the mixing bowl to make the fruit distribution roughly uniform.

Transfer dough to a pan with a scraper and let rise.  This dough will rise to fill a 9"x4"x4"-inch pullman pan in less than hour.

Bake at 450F for 25 minutes.  Result is a moist, sweet, chewy bread with ample fruit.

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Illustrative photos are as follows:

Orange quartered and sliced^

Marmalade, hot, before reduction (note syrupy free-flowing juice)^

Marmalade after reduction (no free-flowing syrupy juice, peel has been cut a bit with knife)^

Dough unrisen in pan^

Dough after 55 minutes rise time^

Loaf and pan after baking^